Ex-Uber driver charged with trying to extort money from passenger

Foot traffic streams past Uber offices on Market Street in San Francisco. A former Uber driver is accused of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted extortion in connection with an incident in West Hollywood in 2015. (Karl Mondon / TNS)

A former Uber driver pleaded not guilty Thursday to trying to extort money from a passenger in order to get her phone back, then nearly running her over when he fled the scene in West Hollywood last year, prosecutors said.

Los Angeles County prosecutors say that Philip Bagwell, 46, who was convicted of grand theft in 1990 and 1998 and forgery in 1991, was an Uber driver in July 2015 when he picked up a woman headed to a West Hollywood comedy club.